WASHINGTON - The American
Civil Liberties Union stands behind senators who have pledged to stand up
against any FISA gutting legislation that includes letting the telecom companies
off the hook for illegal activity. Senators who have pledged to stand against
immunity for telecoms are: Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Senator Christopher Dodd
(D-CT), Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI). Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and
Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). Senator Dodd was the first to announce that he
would actively oppose any legislation that included immunity for illegal acts
committed by telecommunications companies over the past six years.

The ACLU joins other public
interest groups and leading political bloggers in an effort to urge Congress to
stop the FISA gutting legislation. EFF, Act for Change, Working Assets and
MoveOn have also joined the effort to ask Senators to stand against the FISA
gutting legislation that is being considered in Congress.

The online endeavor, www.noretroactiveimmunity.com,
is just one of the efforts to urge changes to the domestic surveillance
legislation that the administration is pushing in both chambers of Congress. The
ACLU also wants to see both House and Senate surveillance legislation changed to
require individual warrants before the government is allowed to access call
information from Americans on American soil. On the Senate side, the
legislation, called the FISA Amendments Act, is heading to the Judiciary
Committee next week where the ACLU is urging significant changes to the current
draft of the legislation.

The following can be attributed
to Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington Legislative Office of the
ACLU:

“The tide is turning on telecom
immunity. The American people did not send members of Congress to Washington to allow
companies to get away with breaking the law. Our elected officials should
be looking out for their constituents – not big business. We want to thank
all of the Senators who are standing up and saying no to letting the bells off
the hook.

“In 2005 when the New York Times
broke the story of domestic and illegal wiretapping, Congress was outraged. Now
it is poised to essentially make warrantless wiretapping legal. We need to turn
the Senate and the House around so that they will uphold civil liberties and not
just rubber stamp this administration’s blatant and continued attempts to
undermine individual freedoms.”